Samurai Flamenco (Star Wars AU) - Anything but Ordinary [Chapter 4] [Gotoyoshi]

[scriveyner]

Title: Anything But Ordinary - Chapter 4
Fandom: Samurai Flamenco
AU: Star Wars AU
Characters/Pairing: Gotou/Masayoshi
Rating: M
Length: 5306
Summary: "I thought Jedi were forbidden attachment."



-4-
 
There was no response from Gotou's ship. Masayoshi sat in the jump seat behind the pilot's in Mari's small ship, one hand on the back of the pilot's seat. Mari frowned and tried again, the line encrypted directly to the freighter. "Something's wrong," Masayoshi said, ill in a bad way. His stomach roiled, he knew, he knew he knew. "I've got to go back."

"No," Mari said. She closed the open comm link line and sat her elbow on the console as she thought. "If Wen's about, that means his spies are about now. They'll take you down in a heartbeat, if they haven't already tagged you. And us." Her brow furrowed, and she glanced back toward the common area, where the Twi'lek named Moe and the Togruta Mizuki were now sitting at the table, cleaning weapons. "Really, the best course of action is getting the hell off-planet, Hazama."

That said, Mari started flipping switches, to bring the ship's engines online. Masayoshi stood straight up, almost banged his head off the control panels above him. "No!" he said. "I'm not leaving, not without Gotou-san!"

"We have to cut our losses," Mari said without looking over at him. "Our work is too important to the Resistance to just get caught up in a feud with a smuggling ring."

"I'm leaving," Masayoshi said firmly, and was out of his seat and through the common area. Mizuki stood up quickly, and Sunny turned around and followed Masayoshi in a hurry, beeping in consternation.

Mari growled something loudly, not in common tongue, back in their direction and Mizuki went to the ramp, lowered it for Masayoshi. "I hope you'll change your mind," she said softly, as the ramp lowered.

Masayoshi nodded, a little impatient that servos moved so slowly when he was in a hurry, as if Mari would put the ship into flight while the ramp was opening. He hesitated only when Mizuki touched his arm, and he looked back at her. "Hey," she said. "May the Force be with you."

Masayoshi held on to that a moment, then smiled and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks." Then he jogged down the ramp, Sunny on his heels.

Mizuki watched them go, waited a long moment, then hit the ramp closure. "They're clear," she said, as the ship sealed itself, prepared for launch.

Moe had already moved to the cockpit, into the copilot's seat. Mari was watching Masyoshi cross the tarmac silently. He pulled the cowl of his cloak back up, and was moving quickly but not yet at a run. She sighed, and Mizuki slid into the jump seat.

"He's in love," Moe said. "It's charming."

"If that's what you want to call it," Mari said, and flipped some switches. "The droid did a dump of our navcomputer when it was plugged in, it's got some slicer programming in it. They should be able to find us, if we don't deviate from our planned route."

"There's got to be more to it," Mizuki said. "I can't see an underworld kingpin like Wen being so torn to bits by the loss of one astromech, even if it did have ledgers on Hutt activity from twenty years ago."

"More than likely." Mari nodded to Moe, who straightened and started flipping switches. "But that's not our problem now, is it?"

"No," Mizuki said with a sigh, securing her restraint webbing and folding her arms. "I suppose it's not."

#

Gotou's head throbbed. It was much like what he imagined it would feel like to have a bantha trying to escape his skull, and as such he kept his eyes close, face pressed to the cold metal where he lay. That was the first action. The second, was the memory of the Wookiee storming his ship, roaring, and Gotou's eyes flew open. He sat up - or, more accurately, attempted to sit upright. The entire room did a slow, deliberate loop-the-loop and he slumped back down, eyes squeezed closed, waiting for everything to settle.

"Ah," a voice said, and Gotou opened his eyes again, to see the pale green-skinned Twi'lek sitting across from the table that Gotou was lying on. The room was dimly lit by old light panels, and by the tilted shift of the room he knew that they were in the Star Destroyer proper. "I'm so glad to see that you're alive, master trader Gotou," Wen said pleasantly. "That was a horrible bump Asyn'kywana gave you."

It took a little bit of effort, but Gotou sat up. His hands were cuffed in front of him, so when he raised one hand to touch his head tenderly, the other went with it. "Wen," he said, and that was it.

Gotou, as a rule, tried to stay as far away from dealing with smugglers as he could manage. It wasn't always possible, as different things were outlawed in different sectors given the general state of the galaxy, but he tried to stay away from out-and-out smuggling. That didn't mean he hadn't had his dealings with Wen, who seemed to control a large portion of the network these days.

"Where's my droid," Wen said, voice calm and level, pleasant through his filed teeth.

"I don't know." It wasn't a lie - the droid was undoubtedly with Masayoshi, and Masayoshi's exact location wasn't something he knew. "The droid's gone. Left with the passenger weeks ago."

"Mm." Wen stood up and gestured his hand. He had a vibroblade in one hand, and Gotou sat up farther, back against the wall that the metal shelf was on. "You were seen in the company of the droid just yesterday, such a poor liar." The Twi'lek looked at the vibroblade, then brushed his hand down one of his lekku. "I don't have a lot of time for games, master trader, but I do enjoy them. It's so easy to leave little bits of you behind as a trail until your friend starts finding it. Should we start with something small, a finger, or an ear...?"

Wen didn't move forward from his position, though - Gotou wasn't restrained at all except for his hands. He glanced to the door, and sighed. "So little time. I want my droid - out of all of them your nosy little friend took the only one I care about."

"What do you want," Gotou said. "Is it money? That droid is a piece of junk, ancient. Its mind was wiped when we tried to access it, there's nothing there. We'll pay you for it."

"Oh, it's not what the droid has in its memory," Wen said. "It's what it contains."

"Sithspit," Gotou said. "I knew it. Astromech droids are always trouble."

Wen took a step forward. "We can do this the easy way, or I can call in my guard to hold you. Where is the droid, master trader?"

Gotou, back pressed to the wall, tilted his chin defiantly. "I already told you I don't know."

"Good," Wen said, and his smile was sharp. "The easy way is so boring."

#

Masayoshi crouched in the alley, beside Sunny, who had tilted forward and plugged into an old, off-center communicators port. The long-dead ship still had electricity, wired and patched and put together by the people who lived here, but its original mainframe was long-dead. It couldn't hurt to let Sunny patch in and see what could be seen, if anything. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to start.

His first inclination had been to go back to the ship, but he realized halfway there it was probably being watched. If Wen had grabbed Gotou, he knew by now that Masayoshi had left, and they'd be on the lookout for him.

He felt like a fool for leaving. If he'd been there, alert, wouldn't that have been enough to save them both? Or would they both be captured - or more likely, dead; Wen just wanted Sunny. It was his gut that led him away, so that minimal damage was done. (But, Gotou-san...)

First things first. He'd find Gotou, rescue him, they'd get the hell off of Senlin and then .... Masayoshi shook his head sharply, and put one hand on Sunny's dome, intending to ask him if he'd found anything. But that wasn't what happened.

They came quick as shots, one after the other, in no particular order - a Quarren, orange-skinned and tentacle-faced, wearing an orange flight suit that clashed with its skin tone and standing next to a gleaming white and red R5 unit - a hooded figure and an old y-wing starfighter - that same Quarren, skin ashen, slumped against the shattered canopy of the starfighter as they drifted powerlessly in the vacuum of space - the hooded figure again, eyes the same color as Masayoshi's, tufts of tawny hair peeking out from under the coarse hood, turning to look directly at him-

Masayoshi yanked his hand back as if burnt, tumbling backward from his crouch to land across the alley, shoulders and head slamming into the metal that composed the other wall. It dazed him, and he shook. Sunny's head twisted around and he whistled mournfully, worried. Masayoshi wiped the sweat from his face with one trembling hand. "'m fine," he managed finally, stomach twisted around in knots, confusion heavy in his chest. Who ... what-

Sunny beeped excitedly, disengaging from the port, and Masayoshi's confusion evaporated instantly. "You've found him?" The astromech whistled and made a sound like a purr, rolling back and forth in place, and Masayoshi scrambled to his feet. He hesitated in touching the droid again but the R5 unit didn't seem to notice, twisting its head and tilting forward, projecting a small map of the shattered star destroyer in front of them. Masayoshi stared at it, concentrating, eyes narrowed in thought. "Did you pull up anything on Wen?" he asked, and Sunny beeped in the negative.

"Okay," Masayoshi said. He studied the map for a few moments more, then nodded and Sunny cut it off. "You need to go back to the ship," he said. "Don't board it, hide nearby."I

mmediately the astromech blatted at him rudely, and Masayoshi shook his head. "Wen wants you for a reason," he said. "I can't just march into the middle of his goons with the prize. You gotta stay back."

Another long series of beeps and whistles, and then, grudgingly, a noise of acceptance. Masayoshi was right, even if Sunny didn't like it. Then the droid did something unexpected, rolling forward and tilting, sliding open a hidden compartment along its body. Masayoshi stared at the droid, at the object in the hidden compartment, and said, "Sunny, is that...?"

Sunny beeped in affirmative, and Masayoshi eye's widened further.

#

A Shistavanen knocked against the bulkhead, and Wen sighed, interrupted in his favorite thing. He stood, and grimaced, then wiped his hands across his trousers and walked to the door. Gotou squinted his eyes open, painfully, and watched the Twi'lek speak with the wolfman. He couldn't make out what they were saying, his ears were still ringing.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the table. If he had his wits about him he would be testing the restraints, but all he could think about was the holographic globe his mother used to keep in the main room of their small apartment. It was a blue and green world, it sparkled like a jewel and he would sit and watch it when he was tiny. She'd point out continents and seas, and tell him all about her homeworld. Gotou wet his lips, thought about how sad her face got when he said he wanted to visit it.

"Where?" Wen's voice rose over the ringing in his ears. Gotou's mind drifted back to the present. He craned his neck, and watched as Wen stormed out the door, leaving it open behind him. The Shistavanen glanced over at Gotou, met his gaze, and then walked away. Restrained as he was, Gotou wasn't going anywhere. Gotou closed his eyes and sighed to himself, half-making up a rule in his head about no longer picking up cute guys who were clearly trouble.

#

Masayoshi wasn't exactly the best at sneaking around.
He'd had a little practice. Once upon a time, he'd had a plan about being a masked hero, someone who would protect the weak and uphold justice - but that had fallen to pieces, along with most things, as the tide of the galaxy shifted. He'd trained himself a bit, but had no formal instruction, and as in most things, he made it up as he went along.

The deeper into the Star Destroyer he got, the fewer people there were around, and the more unsavory those few people he ran across looked. He knew from the map that Sunny had shown him he was going the right way - per the chatter on the comms, Wen was hanging out in this direction. Doing what, no one was entirely sure ... but it was better than nothing. It had been Sunny's idea to be a distraction, the astromech had rooted right back into the system and put up a few reports of a misbehaving R5 unit clear on the other side of the small town. It wouldn't be long until the hoax was uncovered, but it gave Masayoshi a small window to try to find Gotou.

He tried to calm his fast-beating heart, certain anyone he passed would hear it. He actually hadn't passed anyone through the twisting corridors in the belly of the beast in quite some time, and if he was remembering his map right he'd be upon the quad of rooms once used for soldiers' barracks shortly.

Masayoshi held tight to the edge of his hood, for security more than to keep it up. He was indoors now, and keeping his face hidden was not as important. For a brief moment, he recalled the image seared into his head, someone else that looked just like him, same eyes, same hair, wearing a cloak - but he shook it off, and kept moving forward.

Suddenly, the clatter of many people coming his way caused Masayoshi to freeze. He didn't have anywhere to go, head twisting around - the hallway was wide but it was without doorways or alcoves. If he ran, he'd be heard. He looked up, and saw the exposed pipes that ran along the ceiling, where sheets of metal had been pried from the walls. He wasn't the best climber, he used to get pushed down all the time when he was a child, trying to play with other kids, but there was no time for doubt.

By the time the group passed - mostly aliens, Shistavanen, but a few scruffy humans too, all armed to the teeth and following an all-too-familiar green Twi'lek - Masayoshi hung from the pipes in the ceiling, not even daring to breathe. Sunny's distraction worked, though - they were all headed away.

Once they were safely gone around the corner, Masayoshi dropped clumsily back to the ground, fell to one knee as he landed poorly. He scrambled to his feet and his careful walk became a run. Maybe, if he tried…

As he turned a corner, distracted by his own thoughts turned inward, Masayoshi ran straight into a guard. The guard was just as surprised as Masayoshi, one step back and blaster half-drawn from his holster. Masayoshi charged him, shoulder down, and they both slammed back into the wall. The guard's breath exploded out his mouth and his head hit the bulkhead, before they both hit the floor.

Masayoshi relieved the unconscious guard of his blaster, and after a moment's thought, his commlink. He held the weapon awkwardly - he'd handled fake weapons in his dramas, having played many a role, but the real thing was heavier. Masayoshi didn't linger, kept going. He was close, he had to be.

He ran past the room because its door was open, then stopped like he'd hit a solid wall. Backtracking carefully, he stopped in the open doorway.

It was a holding cell, a brig of sorts. And there was Gotou, passed out, restrained to a table, blood dried on his face. Masayoshi stepped into the room, dropped the blaster on the table and touched Gotou's hand, then relaxed when he felt he was still warm. The panic that had threatened to overwhelm him dissipated somewhat, but whatever the hell Wen did to Gotou, he was going to pay.

Gotou lifted his head groggily as Masayoshi worked on the restraints, pulling them free. "'yoshi?" Gotou mumbled, eyes hazy, and Masayoshi stopped immediately, looking to Gotou for reassurance. "Here again, huh," Gotou said, and put his head back down.

Masayoshi wet his lips and went back to work on the restraints. "C'mon, Gotou-san," Masayoshi said as he got his feet free. "You've gotta get conscious for me, I can't carry you out of here."

"Hngh," Gotou said, lifted his head again and squinted. "You're...real?"

"You bet," Masayoshi pulled him into a sitting position, pressed the blaster into his hand. "We're gonna have to run, I need you to pull it together, Gotou-san. I can't fly your ship."

"Real," Gotou said again, softly. Then he leaned forward and aimed a punch at Masayoshi, that missed by quite a bit and didn't have enough force behind it for damage, anyway. "You left!"

"I'll explain later, come on," Masayoshi said. "We don't have a lot of time."

#

Gotou felt like he was functioning through a fog, but it was becoming clearer with every breath. He wasn't going to die.

Okay, maybe he was still going to die, but it wasn't gonna be directly at Wen's hands.

He wobbled a little, unsure, his sense of balance compromised but Masayoshi led, and the blaster felt comfortable in his hand. "Where are we going," he said, when he could put together that Masayoshi was leading them up, deeper into the heart of the downed ship.

"The long way," Masayoshi said. "They won't think to come after us this way, who in their right mind would go deeper into this mess."

"We're going deeper," Gotou said.

"Yeah, well," Masayoshi said. The constructed walkways had stopped by now, and they were traversing slowly, along the juncture of wall and floor, climbing over obstacles and the like. "Don't be like that, Gotou-san, I'm rescuing you."

"Yeah, and I wouldn't have been in this mess if it wasn't for you, too," Gotou said. He fell silent, climbing over a ragged piece of broken metal, as Masayoshi tried to decide which way they were going to go.

It took more time than Masayoshi liked, to go around this way but after climbing down carefully they found a new string of walkways, recently constructed. They hurried along these, able to move at a better pace, back through the corridors of the destroyer on a lower floor, headed for daylight.

Gotou thought, for the barest moment, that they would be home free. They hadn't encountered anyone in this lower floor, and as they neared the enormous hole in the hull that had become the entrance he was certain of it. Until they turned a corner, to the walkway that would lead to the exit, and saw it blocked by a small group.

Masayoshi pulled up short and put one arm out, as if protecting Gotou from view. That was ridiculous, of course, and Gotou stepped around his outstretched arm, blaster held loosely in one hand. He didn't see that Masayoshi had a weapon, and that feeling of doom settled on him again. So much for not dying, today.

"Where," A'landlk Wen said, standing between them and freedom, "is my droid?"

#

Masayoshi took a deep breath. There were seven of them, including Wen - two Shistavanens and the rest humans. All had hands on their weapons. "Sunny doesn't belong to you," he said boldly, loudly.
"Kill them," Wen said, and gestured to two of his human associates. "We know the droid's in the city, turn it upside-down to find it." The two men left quickly.

Gotou ducked back, about to hit the deck before the blaster bolts started flying, but Masayoshi stood firm, holding his ground. He pulled something off his belt, hidden by the cloak he'd been wearing, and held it aloft. "Is this" he called out, catching Wen's attention, "what you've been looking for?"

He felt Gotou's hesitation behind him, and Masayoshi stared across the walkway at Wen, not backing down.

"You don't know what you're doing," Gotou hissed.

Without taking his eyes off Wen, Masayoshi said quietly, "I know exactly what I'm doing. I just don't know if it's going to work."

That said, Masayoshi hit the trigger switch on the lightsaber in his hand.

He'd looked it over in the alleyway with Sunny, the droid beeping and bleeting. It was an old lightsaber, well taken care of. He'd never seen one before, not a real one - there were props of course, he'd seen them on holovids and in news reports and ancient archives but this was a real one, currently in his hands. The weight of it was familiar, but he wasn't certain why.

Its blade was silver, glittering bright in the dim hallway. There was a snap-hiss when it activated, and a soft hum to its existence; and Masayoshi held the ancient weapon in a guard position, eyes still on Wen. His little entourage of armed guards had hesitated too - one backed off, shaking his head, and another took the same opportunity, both departing quickly.

That left one human, and the two Shistavanen guards, along with Wen. "You're no Jedi," Wen yelled at him. Masayoshi didn't say anything, and kept the lightsaber in its guard position.

"Stay behind me, Gotou-san," Masayoshi said. "If they start firing, you'll be safer back there."

"You're not serious," Gotou said, and stepped up beside Masayoshi. "Even if you could deflect anything, I don't trust you not to deflect it back into my face." He held his blaster up and pointed it at Wen. "You've got a problem here, Wen," he yelled in the Twi'lek's direction. "Maybe it's best for you to leave, and save face."

"Kill them," Wen said.

Gotou ducked as they started firing across the walkway, and Masayoshi moved quickly. He didn't quite duck, but leaned more out of the way, as the blaster bolts filled the air around them. He didn't have the first clue on how to actually deflect a blaster bolt, and by sheer luck a few pinged off the blade.

"Now what?" Gotou yelled over the racket, and Masayoshi, emboldened by the random luck that had allowed those bolts to be deflected by the lightsaber, put his head down and charged the walkway, blade held out in front of him and yelling like a demon. "You have got to be kidding," Gotou said, hauling himself up off the floor. "Masayoshi!"

There was something at least about a cloak-wearing, lightsaber-wielding, yelling idiot that caused one Shistavanen to drop his blaster and flee. Masayoshi swung the blade deliberately and this time intentionally deflected the bolt, and not only deflected it but deflected the blaster bolt straight at Wen. He didn't duck in time and it struck him just across the shoulder in a glancing blow. Gotou came up behind Masayoshi at a run, shooting wildly, and his shots dropped the one remaining human.

The other Shistavanen decided to cut its losses, scooped Wen under its arm, and bolt. Masayoshi made it to the other end of the walkway, toward the exit, and stopped running, lightsaber still in hand. He breathed hard a moment, then extinguished the blade and looked back at Gotou, eyes wide. "I can't believe that worked."

"It worked, and they're gonna call reinforcements, and we don't have time to-" Gotou said, chest heaving. Masayoshi turned all the way to Gotou and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. Gotou's reflexes were already most of the way shot from the trauma he'd had so far today, and he didn't have the strength in him to try to jerk away, and he simply wasn't prepared for the moment when Masayoshi kissed him.

It was brief and part adrenaline-high, but Masayoshi released him almost immediately. "Sorry," he said breathlessly, eyes wide and shocked at himself.

Gotou shoved him. "Later," he said, a little stunned himself. "Later, run now."

Masayoshi kept the lightsaber in his hand. "Roger," he said.

#

They tore through the constructed streets of the city at a dead run, and almost collided with two First Order stormtroopers standing at the end of an intersection, speaking briskly to two aliens that Masayoshi didn't recognize. He recalled dimly Mari's mention that wherever Wen went that the First Order wasn't far behind. "Hey, you," one of the stormtroopers said, but Masayoshi didn't even break strike, grabbing Gotou by the outstretched arm and pulling him after.

"First Order," he said, and Gotou went, "no shit," and yanked his arm free.

There were more stormtroopers around the docking bay, but Masayoshi barreled through them too. They both raised blaster rifles to fire at them and Gotou fired back before they could get shots off. The ship was sitting just as he'd left it, and Masayoshi slowed, let Gotou charge up the ramp first, the followed after, slamming the ramp closure.

"What about Sunny?" Gotou yelled, already in the cockpit, priming the ship for launch.

There was a string of beeps and whistles from the common, where Gotou had blown right past the droid without seeing him. "Sorry," Masayoshi said, and patted the droids head as he passed. "He didn't mean to not see you."

Gotou was standing at the console, flipping switches above his head as Masayoshi dropped into the copilot's seat. "All aboard, captain," Masayoshi said with a tight grin, and Gotou shot him a look, then sat back down in the seat.

"This could get messy," he said. "We never got that coolant line taken care of." They both winced when a blaster bolt skimmed past the forward viewport. "Work on these shields," he said to Masayoshi, before leaning back and shouting back into the common. "Secure yourself, Sunny!"

The droid beeped in acknowledgment, even as the ship's engines fired up.

The comm system buzzed to life. "This is flight controller, please power down your ship and prepare for board-" the rest of the command was lost as Gotou slapped off the comm system. "We just increased the size of our bounty by tenfold."

"Nothing like being popular," Masayoshi said, flipping switches in the order Gotou had taught him.

The ship only complained a little as the engines fired, and it lifted into the air. "There'll be pursuit," Masayoshi said. "Do we have any weapons?"

"Not any that haven't been cannibalized for parts," Gotou said. "I'll just have to out fly them."

"Oh boy," Masayoshi set the shields to full, then pulled down his restraint webbing.

#

Pursuit turned out to be a pair of regulation TIE fighters. "I'm almost disappointed," Gotou said, and he twitched the flight stick to the side. If anyone had been unsecured, they would have been flung violently into the wall by the maneuver, but everyone was strapped in, and Sunny had clamped to a table. The move meant that the smattering of green energy bolts flew right past the ship, and maybe one impacted across the shields that covered the engine.

"I'd be less disappointed if this ship had weapons," Masayoshi said, calculating frantically with the navcomputer to get them a safe light speed jump. Once out of Seilin's atmosphere, the drag on the TIE's wings was gone, and their sole advantage in flight was eliminated. Of course, the ship was equipped with a hyperdrive, unlike the shieldless short-range TIE fighters, but that didn't really matter when the only thing they could do was rely on Gotou's flying and the shields holding.

"Well, I'll just have to work on that," Gotou said, pulling the flight stick back. "Do we have a vector yet?"

"Inputting the coordinates now," Masayoshi said, as Gotou pointed the ship away from the planet. After a moment the computer beeped its acknowledgment, and the entire ship shook as it jumped to light speed.

There was a shared moment of silence as the stars elongated into the tunnel of hyperspace, and then they both let out a long breath. Masayoshi slumped back in his seat and laughed, hair stuck up funny from the hood he'd been wearing, and Gotou covered his face with one hand, exhaustion catching up to him.

Abruptly, an alarm went off within the ship, and Gotou swore. "What, what-?" Masayoshi said.

"The coolant line," Gotou yelled, and flung himself out of his seat.

#

Later, with a new patch on the line, Gotou sat on the floor, wiping his hands off on a rag that was probably dirtier than his hands. "So," he said, as he watched Masayoshi put the toolbox he'd upset trying to find the patches for Gotou back together. "Lightsaber, huh?"

"Yeah," Masayoshi said.

"Where'd it come from?"

"Sunny had it." Masayoshi set the toolbox aside, and took the lightsaber off his belt, offering it to Gotou, who shook his head. "I think..." he said, and then shook his head. "No, nevermind."

"Well," Gotou said. "Now you gotta tell me, can't leave me hanging."

"I think it might have been my grandfather's." Masayoshi looked at the silver weapon in his hand. "But my grandfather hated the Jedi, would always stop me from talking about it, or asking questions." He sighed deeply, and looked at the astromech droid. "I just don't know for sure."

Gotou shrugged his shoulders loosely. "So, why don't we find out?"

Masayoshi lifted his head. "How?"

"Well, there's gotta be something out there. Records, somewhere." Sunny beeped an affirmative, and Gotou looked at the droid with a raised eyebrow. "Don't tell me you have a record?"

The R5 droid rolled forward between them and tilted a little. A small chip rattled in one of its extended drawer compartments. "That's just the chip that Mari gave me," Masayoshi said, a little disappointed. "That's not going to tell me anything about my grandfather."

"No," Gotou said, getting what the droid was trying to communicate. "But the Resistance would."

Masayoshi blinked as Gotou stood up. "You think ... the Resistance might know?"

"If nothing else, they'll point you in the right direction." Gotou dropped the rag onto the toolbox and wiped his hands again on his trousers for good measure. "It's as good a place as any to start. They have connections to the Jedi, after all."

He stopped a moment, and looked at Masayoshi, who was back to staring at the lightsaber in his hands. "Masayoshi," Gotou said. When Masayoshi looked up at Gotou, he asked bluntly, "why did you kiss me?"

Masayoshi's eyes widened comically. "I," he said, and stopped. "I don't know. I shouldn't've, I'm sorry. Jedi are forbidden attachment, after all." His ears had gone pink, he looked down at the table, the blush curling up his cheeks and over his nose.

Gotou made a noise of assent, crossing the small common to stand beside the couch, looking down at Masayoshi. That tug of something was there again, under his lungs, and he hadn't felt it in so long he'd almost forgotten what it mean. Masayoshi looked up at him, still blushing - and he turned a darker shade of red when Gotou cupped his hand over Masayoshi's cheek, feeling the warmth of the blush through his palm. "Then it's a good thing you're not a Jedi yet, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Masayoshi said softly, his eyes drifted closed as Gotou leaned down, and kissed him.

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